Letter threatens to blow up Ramjanmabhoomi office

Security in and around the Ramjanmabhoomi complex in Uttar Pradesh's temple town of Ayodhya was stepped up after a district judge received a letter threatening to blow up the area in the coming days, police said on Tuesday.

District Judge Ram Vraksh Yadav received the handwritten letter through ordinary post late Monday, sending security forces in Ayodhya, about 135 km from here, into a tizzy.

On March 22, local police had received a letter threatening to blow up the railway station around Ram Navmi. Nothing happened then but police are leaving nothing to chance, said Bhanu Bhaskar, deputy inspector general (DIG) of Faizabad.

The matter was "highly sensitive by virtue of being attached to Ayodhya" and forces are perpetually in a "state of high alert", Bhaskar told IANS.

Faizabad Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Ramit Sharma has ordered a probe into the letter, which also threatens to bomb the district court.

The first letter was written by a man named Abdul Kareem and was sent from Bhiwandi in Maharashtra.

"We are trying to match the handwriting of the two letters to ascertain if the source of both the letters is the same," an official privy to the investigation said.

The Ramjanmabhoomi complex in Ayodhya has for decades been the proverbial eye of the communal storm. The 16th century Babri Masjid was razed to the ground in December 1992 by radical Hindu activists who believed it was built on the birthplace of Lord Ram.